Friday, January 17, 2014

Iowa Renewable Energy Policy Update January 2014

Happy New
Year readers. As the Iowa legislative session starts, we small scale – local owned
wind and solar fans once again hope for Iowa legislators to advance last years
feed in tariff proposal. At last Wednesdays Senate agriculture committee meeting,
Chairman Joe
Seng announced his wish to do just that. Utility lobbyists are now
attending Agriculture committee meetings, so it looks as though those committee
members can look forward to lots of lobbying by utility interests.

It looks like
there will be an eminent
domain bill in response to Clean Line Energy’s wish to build a privately
owned transmission line across Iowa.

I’m also
working on an update to the MidAmerican wind property tax issue. I’ve attended
my local county supervisors meeting and met with the Iowa Department of Revenue
on this issue. I’ve posted about this item here ad nauseam. I think energy
wonks will enjoy the next update though.

The Iowa
Supreme Court will hear a dispute
between utilities and advocates for the leasing of solar PV systems. Thanks for
this link IRENEW. John Farrell clearly favors policy encouraging ownership
of solar. In the interest of full disclosure, I also favor ownership over leasing.
I’d encourage readers to try and convince me otherwise. My interweb searching
also found this post-
Why Treasury Is Investigating SolarCity
and Solar Third-Party Funds while looking for additional information on
this issue. Solar leasing proponents
will also be advocating at the Iowa legislature this session.

There’s a
lot of good reading available for distributed generation fans these days. An Indiana
legislator has introduced a
feed in tariff bill (are you paying attention Iowa legislators?). Paul Gipe
has a post
at National Geographic - “Time
to Break Free of Net-Metering; We Need a “FIT” Policy for Renewable Energy to
Soar”. I’ve posted before about the difference between feed in tariffs and
net metering. I’ve seen the two policies as complimentary in the past. But, as
Paul notes, feed in tariffs are responsible for 70% of renewable installations worldwide.
Net metering accounts for 2%. Look for an in-depth post about this here soon.
The utilities have been vocal about how unfair net metering is to them lately. Barry
Goldwater Jr. in AZ. Isn’t buying it. A quote from the Paul Gipe post. “Maybe the electric utilities are right,
for a change.”Quickly followed by “If they are right about net-metering, it’s
for all the wrong reasons. They want to stop solar photovoltaics (solar PV)
now. They want to put it in the grave before it takes even more market share
from their comfy business. Climate change and future generations be damned.Maybe we should let them. I can hear the
howls of derision from the usual suspects: the solar PV industry, the solar
leasing companies, and their sycophants in the advocacy community.”

I also found
a post
about the history of solar policy in the U.S. -
“How Ronald Reagan Turned Out the Lights
on Solar Power”. After reading, it seems clear that Presidents Nixon and
Carter weren’t very helpful to solar Research and Development either. As
discussed in the post, The U.S. passed on leading in solar technology. Germany,
with their feed in tariff policy, and Japan, with tech advancements, can largely
claim credit for the 70% reduction in solar installation costs worldwide. How
much longer will the U.S. continue to pass on good renewable energy policy?